Venerable Melania the Elder

Venerable Melania the Elder came from a noble Roman family; widowed at 22 after the deaths of her prefect husband and two of her three sons, she left her surviving son under guardianship and around 373 sailed to Alexandria, Egypt, where she spent about six months among the Egyptian desert fathers — Isidore, Pambo, Pisimius, Adelphius, Paphnutius, and Ammonius — amid Arian persecution of Nicene monks.

When the Egyptian monks were exiled to Palestine, she followed them, at times concealing her noble origin to avoid unwanted attention. Around 378 she settled on the Mount of Olives near Jerusalem, founding a women's monastery and a hospice for pilgrims. There she became the spiritual companion and patron of Rufinus of Aquileia, who established a men's monastery nearby; she corresponded with, and at times rivaled, St. Jerome of Stridon (their relationship cooled over the Origenist controversy, in which she and Rufinus took the side opposite Jerome).

She was the grandmother of Venerable Melania the Younger (already documented in our database as a separate entry, melania_the_younger). Around 399-400 she visited Rome (tradition holds she brought a relic of the True Cross), partly to help her granddaughter through a difficult family situation, then returned to Jerusalem, where she died peacefully around 410.

Her feast is kept on June 8/21.